What Got Pinter his Nobel Prize?

I can't say I've read much by Harold Pinter, but then I never claimed to be anything but the uncultured boor that I am. Nevertheless, this whole hubbub over whether his views or prose won him the Nobel strikes me as a bit silly. Starting from the obviously true observation that the majority of eminent writers skew left politically, the way to judge whether someone of Pinter's caliber got picked for his plays or his opinions is an easy thought experiment: if you were the Nobel committee and you were trying to pick a prose stylist whose ascension would be the clearest slap in Bush's face, would you pick Pinter?

Well, no.

Pinter may be a Bush critic, but he's not a particularly well-known one. You could've gotten a lot more mileage out of awarding Philip Roth his overdue award, particularly now that The Plot Against America has clarified his stance. Indeed, that would've have the added plus of motivating other writers who feel themselves overdue for a Nobel to write books implicitly comparing Bush to fascist anti-semites. Hell, you could even delve into the quasi-muck of popular fiction and go with John LeCarre, who did, after all, redefine spy novels, and whose Absolute Friends was a former intelligence officers denouncement of the Bush administration. But instead you'd go with Pinter? Sorry folks, but I think not.

Pinter might not like Bush, but he's neither particularly piercing nor unquestionably effective in his distaste. He's a leftie, sure, but only incidentally so, the movement will hum along just fine without him. So while you can certainly argue that his politics didn't hurt, it's a bit bizarre to hold that they, and not his plays or vision, were the driving reason behind his pick. It just doesn't make sense.